[4 Spirit Points Collected.]
[4 Spirit Points Collected.]
[4 Spirit Points Collected.]
Trilok's and Vayu's living quarters hadn't changed much despite Trilok now holding a small fortune under his clutches. He still meditated on a mattress. He still worked hard every morning to create batches of [Poor Man's Health], and even started experimenting on a new product but, of course, with his shaky alchemical foundation, the process was slow. In fact, he had commissioned Nolan's support while trying to experiment on the activity of pill refining, since the man was better than Trilok.
And at evening, Vayu would reveal an even slower progress than Trilok in basic education, making Trilok feel proud of himself and distressed at the same time.
[Name: Trilok
Age: 19
Spirit Vein: Blue (Upgrade Requirement: 500,000)
Cultivation: Spiritual Enhancer— 1 (Upgrade Requirement: 18,000)
Spirit Points: 196,764
Technique: Sea God's Grace (High-Legendary)(Special Traits: Heart of Sea— 2)(Upgrade Requirement: 200,000)
]
Aside from upgrading his spiritual vein to blue from green which increased the acquired spiritual energy from the surroundings from a measly 1 to 4 points, Trilok had only been grinding spirit points for a little over 6 months. With 40 coins a vial of [Poor Man's Health], Trilok had an astonishing gross profit of 63,000, out of which, 2% was intended for the community taxes while Kol gained 3000 coins as a salary per month. On the other hand, Vayu only earned 800 coins per month, which was already greater than his peers.
With all these expenses deducted, and around 1000 or 2 for the six months of living expenses, Trilok was left with a net profit of 38940, and with the earlier savings, Trilok now had a little over 70,000 coins saved up.
'Just a little more,' Trilok opened his eyes.
Instead of upgrading his cultivation by enforcing his spirit based on the High-ranked cultivation technique, Trilok wanted to set up a better foundation by upgrading his technique to an earth-ranked one.
"Better get to my work," Trilok stood up and stretched his body.
After the initial breakthrough, his strength wasn't increased at all. Any spiritual energy he gained would be stored as spirit points and then get used for single breakthroughs.
The Sky Ocean was still dark with the pale blue moon nearing the horizon and the crimson sun peeking from the opposite side with a warm glow which caused the waves of the sky ocean to glow up in a beautiful, orange shimmer of dawn.
"Hmm, I think I'm getting close to finally making something new!" Trilok smiled and set up his equipment over his wooden counter. The set-up consisted of a small glass beaker, a skull-sized bronze cauldron and, a basket filled with herbs.
The basket of herbs was a small trick performed by a small-time alchemist like him. A number of set ingredients of a recipe would be kept in a single basket to make the spirit herbs more tolerant to each other. A few of them would end up withering, or turning completely blank without any spiritual effect but overall, this was the step that Noland and Trilok completed always.
Filling the beaker with four drops of dissolving sea menace, a form of highly dense liquid that can dissolve flora but highly corrosive in nature even to human skin and ordinary metals, Trilok carefully crushed a dried ant cucumber.
The pitch-black powder was then slowly pushed into the beaker and the remnants stuck to the hand were dusted off. Next, Trilok began mixing the inconspicuous drops of clear dissolving sea menace with the powder of the crushed cucumber.
If Noland was an expert in using flames to boil concoctions and drying them enough to refine pills out of the purified contents then Trilok was an expert in mixing of alchemical contents. Alchemy was divided into two paths. The liquid potions with various permanent and temporary effects, most effective for body cultivators, and Pill Refiners catering to the need of spiritual cultivation.
The solution slowly turned out to look like a black dough, but there were still many clumps of black powder and the contents of the beaker weren't even close to being a potion.
But, to Trilok, this wasn't enough.
He continued to move the glass rod slowly, without any impatience in his heart. He observed the changes and as he expected, the reaction of a dried ant cucumber with Dissolving Sea Menace was an additive one. In reality, the Dissolving Liquid is high in demand but extremely low in supply due to the high risks involved in gathering this alchemical product.
But a Black Ant Cucumber, which hosts a single sea ant and raises a colony of ant, has additive properties to corrosive liquids. The dried clumps, under continuous pressure of the churning glass rod, turned damp and soon moistened up before covering a centimeter of the beaker's height with thick black liquid.
"Any more and it'll dry up again," Trilok smiled and picked up a red blade of grass. He folded and clenched the blade of grass only for it to remain warm and elastic.
A scorch seaweed. Quite common but also extremely important in the modern potioneering.
Trilok dropped the finger-lengthed blade of glass into the beaker and instantly—
*Tss*
The black liquid instantly reacted to the contact of the red blade of grass and began to bubble up. The temperature of the store turned warm but Trilok did not care. Instead, he carefully observed the dissolving grass heating up the corrosive liquid and would even push pieces of broken red seaweed into the liquid with his beaker.
With the base set and the temperature of the liquid adequate, Trilok did not waste any more time and cut off three leaves of Hunger Spirit Coral Tree, an eye of golden clownfish, and a gem of crystal coral.
Of course, he knew better than to toss all of them into the beaker together. Instead, he covered the moist eyeball with the beautiful purple leaves. Even though he felt a little disgusted, he continued to do it without any hesitation. Once the eye was covered, he brought his hand within the beaker, and even if it was absolutely hot, he did not toss the eyeball harshly but placed it in the middle of the beaker. Even if the bubbling liquid now managed to reach 2 centimeters within the beaker, it did not directly touch Trilok's hand.
Instead of placing the gem of crystal coral, he began rotating the patched eyeball with the glass rod, and soon, the grass started to dissolve under heat and corrosion. But the previously white eye now had a purple tinge to it.
He continuously rotated the eyeball, letting the leaves dissolve and boil before making it contact with the eye, and when almost every potion of the eye was almost purple, it could be seen that the heat no longer affected the eye.
Trilok's gaze flashed and he carefully touched the eyeball with the blue gem of the crystal coral.
Under the touch of the cold crystal, the purple eye started to gather frost around it and once the surrounding black potion was covered with a layer of frost, Trilok pulled the gem back, realizing that it naturally wasn't as cold as it was in the beginning. But it could still be used again so he placed it aside.
Finally, after taking a deep breath, Trilok pushed his glass rod against the frosty eye.
*Clink*
Thin cracks spread under light pressure and with a greater push, the frozen eye broke apart and Trilok began mixing the concoction.
The original dark liquid turned dark purple in color and after a few minutes of patient churning, it turned into a thick, creamy, lavender-colored liquid.
"Huff!"
Trilok exhaled deeply and he seemed to have grown tired once again. But gazing at the concoction, he saw a simple explanation.
[Spiritual Aftertaste: A rare concoction under the heaven which requires the dissolving sea menace as a base, the single eye of treasure crab, and the cold essence of an ice nymph. Special Traits: After consumption, the absorption of spiritual energy is increased by 200% for two hours. Note: This effect diminishes for users with spiritual veins purple or above with each grade higher slashing the effect by half.]
Trilok smiled.
Six months had passed and he had already used the materials he had purchased from the Trade Ship sent out from the Ark.
By this time, Trilok had finally managed to replicate one of the spiritual potions from the ship. In fact, even from the ship, he couldn't purchase the eye of a treasure crab or the essence of an ice nymph. He didn't even know what a nymph was. But he began experimenting with various eyes and cold-attribute products and only after six months did he achieve a concrete result.
'Well... the cost of raw materials of this one is almost 4000! The selling price of 13,000 makes sense now. The success rate of the development of this concoction is heartbreaking. Now that I have the basic product... I need to level it down. Not many can afford this expensive of a potion.'
Without thinking all that much, Trilok dripped a few drops of the thick potion into the iron cauldron and then filled the contents with the natural oils of tens of fishes.
He even knew the result he would achieve this time.
Covering the lid of the bronze cauldron and draining the contents of the potion into a glass vial before sealing it with a sponge cork, Trilok returned to the room and placed the cauldron on a burning stove.
Within minutes, he attained something simple.
Gazing at the boiling, light pink liquid, or in this case, oil, Trilok read—
[Spirit Trace Oil: An Uncommon Oil concoction under heaven formed by a mixture of tens of fleshy oil of sea beasts, 3 seeds of mellow melon, and five eyes of multi-eyed ice fish.
Special Traits: After consumption, the absorption of spiritual energy is increased by 200% for two hours. Note: This effect diminishes for users with spiritual veins blue or above with each grade higher slashing the effect by half.]
"Hmm, I can make this far quicker and the cost is affordable," Trilok chuckled eerily.
He is going to dominate the market for some time now.
